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Mezhan Kwaad
Mezhan Kwaad was an infamous female Yuuzhan Vong shaper and the master of Nen Yim. A heretic among her species, Kwaad would often violate, albeit in secret, the laws that governed the shaper caste. By the time of the Yuuzhan Vong War, her skill had enabled her to attain the prestigious rank of a master shaper. Heresy, however, was not Kwaad's only transgression against the laws of her species; the shaper fell in love with a commander, Vua Rapuung, and started a forbidden affair with the warrior. When Rapuung ended the relationship due to religious reasons, an enraged Kwaad proclaimed her heresy to him, and openly denounced the existence of the Yuuzhan Vong gods. Paranoid that her secrets would be revealed, Kwaad used her talents to cause Rapuung's body to reject his warrior implants, bestowing upon him the greatest curse for the Yuuzhan Vong—the appearance of a Shamed One. With Rapuung's claims perceived as delusions, Kwaad was able to commit heresy without fear of discovery. She was soon tasked with a project to experiment upon a captured Jedi apprentice, Tahiri Veila, in order to discern the cause and source of the Force. As her assistant in the endeavor, Kwaad selected an adept, Nen Yim. On the moon of Yavin 4, Kwaad and Yim began the process of converting the young Jedi apprentice's memories and personality to those of a Yuuzhan Vong, in tandem with their investigation into the Force. Suspicion, however, hounded Kwaad, and the commander of the base on Yavin 4, Tsaak Vootuh, soon entered into a plot with Yal Phaath, a senior shaper, in order to ascertain whether Yim and her master were committing heresy in their experiments on Veila. Indeed, Kwaad had been clandestinely defying the sacred shaping protocols throughout the project, and was subsequently discovered and arrested. Kwaad's journey into custody was interrupted by the reappearance of Vua Rapuung and his ally Anakin Solo, who pressured the master shaper into revealing her earlier actions against Rapuung. The master shaper attempted to escape, but was decapitated by Veila before she could flee. Among the various castes of the Yuuzhan Vong, Kwaad was remembered as an arch-heretic, and her domain was disgraced. Among the Shamed Ones, on the other hand, Kwaad entered into the epic cycle of the legend of Vua Rapuung, one of the central tenets of the heretical movement that arose following the events on Yavin 4. Biography Early life and affair Born into Domain Kwaad, a leading shaper domain, Mezhan Kwaad possessed prodigious talent for the art of shaping, a form of biological science that enabled the Yuuzhan Vong to bio-engineer and create organisms that could serve the species. Unknown to her superiors, however, Kwaad was a practitioner of heresy; she had no patience for the strict laws that governed her caste. Orthodox shaping practice stated that all knowledge was possessed by Yun'o, the collective name for the Yuuzhan Vong gods, and that the deities were able to pass down this knowledge, when they saw fit, to the Supreme Overlord of the Yuuzhan Vong. This view—the only one tolerated—thus implied that if Yuuzhan Vong technology ever failed the species, the shapers had to petition the Supreme Overlord to ask the gods for new insights and methods. As seven of eight Yuuzhan Vong cortices were already full repositories of shaper lore, it was assumed that all the bio-technology remaining to be granted to the Yuuzhan Vong lay in the eighth cortex. At some point in her life, Kwaad came to believe that there were no gods distributing information and techniques to the Supreme Overlord, and that to survive, the Yuuzhan Vong would need to adapt the strict shaping protocols to suit their needs. As this viewpoint doubted the gods, it was considered heresy of the first order, punishable by death. Shapers of Domain Kwaad had often been known for their flirtations with heresy, and at least one, Yakun Kwaad, was discovered and executed in the final decades of the Yuuzhan Vong fleet's long approach to the promised galaxy, where Supreme Overlord Shimrra had declared that the wandering Yuuzhan Vong would find their rightful home. Around the time of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion of the galaxy, when Mezhan Kwaad was nearing the end of her youth, she fell in love with a commander of the warrior caste, Vua Rapuung. Unions between different castes were forbidden to the Yuuzhan Vong, perceived as insults to the gods, but while Kwaad dismissed this law due to her heretical beliefs, the guilt of defying Yun-Yuuzhan, the chief deity of the Yuuzhan Vong, disturbed Rapuung. Although the two were deeply in love, Rapuung gave up praying to Yun-Txiin and Yun-Q'aah, the lover gods, and realized that the affair would destroy them both, and thus broke it off. Kwaad revealed her heresy to her lover and proclaimed that belief in the gods was a superstition, telling Rapuung that so long as they were strong, they could do whatever they wished. The commander was not taken in by such words, and although he urged Kwaad to believe that he would never spread word of her heresy, the shaper grew fearful that her secret would become common knowledge. To neutralize Rapuung as a threat to her continued survival, Kwaad manipulated the commander's warrior implants and caused them to fail. A rejection of an implant was the mark of a Shamed One, the lowliest members of Yuuzhan Vong society, who were put to use carrying out menial chores for the superior castes, shunned by all others. Rapuung lost his rank, reputation and domain status, but suspected what had happened. For the rest of his life, Vua Rapuung would pursue his redemption, seeking to prove that Kwaad had artificially made him a Shamed One. At some point, Mezhan Kwaad conspired with the Fosh familiar Vergere and the deception sect priestess Ngaaluh to form a secret society that plotted to overthrow the Yuuzhan Vong religion and caste system. Kwaad, who at some point had been escalated to the rank of Master Shaper, was one of several masters who, one year into the Yuuzhan Vong War, was selected to conduct experiments on captured Jedi. The New Jedi Order, whose Praxeum was located on Yavin 4, one of the moons of Yavin Prime, was of particular interest to Supreme Overlord Shimrra and other high-ranking Yuuzhan Vong, and thus the shapers were tasked with determining the source of the Force, an enigmatic energy field the Jedi claimed to be able to influence. To aid her in her endeavor, Kwaad chose a shaper initiate from the worldship ''Baanu Kor, called Nen Yim, who had made an inspired choice of protocol to preserve a section of the ancient vessel's nervous system. Kwaad knew that the young shaper had carried out heresy during her work. Yim, now a shaper adept, accompanied her new master to Yavin 4, although Kwaad did not yet approach the young shaper on the subject of heresy. Also present aboard the fleet heading toward the moon was Vua Rapuung, as well as Master Shaper Yal Phaath, from a rival domain. In space over Yavin 4, the fleet commander, Tsaak Vootuh, discovered that members of the Peace Brigade, an organization collaborating with the Yuuzhan Vong, had already attacked the Praxeum. Most of the Jedi had escaped the moon, safe aboard the starships of Jedi-aligned smuggler Talon Karrde, whose forces remained in the Yavin system. Only one, a fourteen-year-old Jedi girl named Tahiri Veila, had been captured by the Brigade. Kwaad was the master entrusted with experimenting on the young Jedi, ostensibly to research the Force. However, the shaper had other plans. She would indeed discover the source of the Force, but in the process would also mold Veila into an extension of her will, granting her a loyal and obedient protector and bringing her unparalleled glory.The New Jedi Order Sourcebook Jedi Veila Once Commander Vootuh's forces had entered into a standoff with those of Karrde, the landing was prosecuted and the shapers were allowed to set foot on Yavin 4's jungle surface. Damuteks, Yuuzhan Vong compounds, were to be installed on the moon, over the site of the Great Temple. As the organic buildings unfolded themselves, Kwaad disembarked her transport and approached Nen Yim. Kwaad informed her adept why she had selected the young shaper to be her protégé. She encouraged Yim concerning their mission to shape the galaxy, and reminded the adept that not only did the Yuuzhan Vong need shapers who were willing to test the limits of convention, but also that Supreme Overlord Shimrra was observing events on Yavin 4 closely. The master then took her new protégé off to have her shaper hand attached; a painful process the master herself had once endured. Kwaad waited for her adept in the grotto of Yun-Ne'Shel, the goddess worshiped by the shaper caste, while Nen Yim had her wrist severed. When the shaper hand had been attached, Kwaad remained with her adept to give advice and reassurance. The master shaper also spoke of the joy they would find together in experimenting on Veila and bringing glory to their caste, the Yuuzhan Vong, and themselves. Mezhan Kwaad and Yim conducted an interrogation of Veila and learned, as expected, that when the Jedi used her powers, she believed she was drawing on an energy field produced by all living things—the Force. Master and adept set to work on mapping their captive's nervous system, in order to discover the biological source of Veila's ability to manipulate this energy field. As Humans were largely an unknown species to the Yuuzhan Vong, Veila's nervous system was a new frontier, and to explore it Kwaad used the protocol of Tsong and a provoker spineray. The spineray would invoke a painful reaction from a cluster of nerves in the Jedi's body, and with Veila incarcerated in a membrane bound section of a vivarium, Kwaad and Yim were safe to conduct their scientific investigation. Ordering the provoker spineray to target nerves selectively, they soon discovered that the Human's nervous system was composed of structures that had no physical counterpart in the Yuuzhan Vong. In manipulating the protocol of Tsong in this manner, Kwaad was once again flirting with heresy and, indeed, as she conferred with Nen Yim, Master Shaper Yal Phaath entered the chamber with his aide and confronted the two shapers. Phaath, a strict adherent to the protocols, failed to see how Kwaad believed that Humans existed outside the eight cortices of shaper lore, as Yun-Yuuzhan had theoretically created all life. He reminded Yim and, indirectly, her master, that to seek new knowledge, instead of petitioning the Supreme Overlord for it, was the stuff of heresy. The verbal sparring between the two masters continued, but as Phaath threatened his peer that he was watching her very closely, the four Yuuzhan Vong were suddenly assaulted by Veila through the Force. The Jedi manipulated the molecules in the vivarium's air, seeking to crush her captors, and Kwaad soon collapsed under the intensity of the high pressure. She was saved, along with the others, by Nen Yim, who used the device that controlled the provoker spineray to trigger a massive wave of pain in the Jedi, which caused Veila to faint. Kwaad took control, saving her specimen before the Jedi died from the pain, and explained the Jedi's theory of the Force to a skeptical Yal Phaath. The ancient master took his leave for the planet of Myrkr, where he was to oversee the shaping of vornskrs into creatures that could hunt Jedi. The news disturbed Mezhan Kwaad, as such a creature would pose a threat to Veila, once Kwaad had bent the young Jedi girl to her will. She was, however, eager to see the interfering master leave the system. During Kwaad's experiments on Veila, the shaper was visited by her co-conspirators Ngaaluh and Vergere, who oversaw some of Kwaad's work on the young Jedi. The project to map Tahiri Veila's neural pathways continued, and in the meanwhile Kwaad was pained by the approaching removal of her Vaa-tumor, a shaper implant that was grafted onto the brain matter to grant greater knowledge, but which eventually required excision. Until removed, the Vaa-tumor caused Kwaad constant pain, and thus Nen Yim carried out the experiments on Veila in the interim. When the adept informed Kwaad of the completion of the mapping of the nervous system, the master shaper decided it was time to broach the subject of the full-blown heresy they were about to embark upon. Kwaad knew that, having mapped the Human's nervous system, Yim had discovered that the physiology of Veila's species differed significantly from that of the Yuuzhan Vong, and that the protocol of Tsong could no longer aid their investigation into the Force. Such a revelation required the two shapers to move beyond the confines of the orthodox protocol and adapt the provoker spineray to suit their requirements. To her relief and satisfaction, Yim responded to Kwaad's careful probing and revealed that she was willing to circumvent the strictures of shaper law. The heretical master, however, warned Yim that she would not be betrayed by her adept; when the younger shaper vowed to place herself utterly in Kwaad's hands, the master took her protégé to visit Veila once again. Personality and traits Mezhan Kwaad was driven by a belief in her heresy as intense as the fanaticism that guided the orthodoxy of the Yuuzhan Vong religion. The master shaper felt that the only way the Yuuzhan Vong could adapt and survive was to defy the protocols and make innovative advances; in this respect, Kwaad was seeking to improve the fortunes of her race. Indeed, as she claimed during her failed escape, she had no desire to harm any fellow members of her species, and stated that she had acted out of necessity to kill Commander Vootuh and his guards. The master shaper was not merely driven by pragmatism and altruism, however. Kwaad's desire to aid the Yuuzhan Vong was only one of the many factors that guided her actions. In the Jedi project, Kwaad saw glory chiefly for herself, and much of her drive to shape Tahiri Veila came from her wish to possess a tame Force-wielder of her own. The master shaper's heresy and ambition, which culminated to some extent in delusions of grandeur, even led Nen Yim to confide later that Mezhan Kwaad may have been insane. In terms of her shaping ability, Kwaad was a talented and intelligent Yuuzhan Vong, who was able to adapt protocols in many ways to suit her purposes. The master shaper's long attempt to keep her heresy secret, however, rendered her paranoid and defensive, and she went about her work in secrecy. Kwaad's paranoia also led her to destroying the livelihood of her former lover, Vua Rapuung, when she believed him to be a risk to her survival. The shaper's actions in this regard were also guided by an element of spite; having been spurned by her lover, she chose not to kill Rapuung, but instead to force him to appear as a madman. Kwaad's cruelty in her manipulation of Rapuung was reflected in her work; Veila was fourteen when experimented on by the master shaper, and the heretic showed no compunction as she observed the effects her scientific investigation and subjugation of Veila's personality were having on the Jedi. Proud and confident in her work, Kwaad was nevertheless tricked twice by those around her; lured out by Yal Phaath, her heresy was uncovered, and when faced by the lightsaber telekinetically moving toward her, she did not think that it was her prize specimen who was using the Force. The master shaper's overconfidence and arrogance, shown in her declaration of heresy before her death, often concealed a more introspective side of her personality. Kwaad was captivated by the world of knowledge granted to her by her enhanced brain, and on occasions became mesmerized and placid when she spoke of it. Appearances *Star Wars: Edge of Victory I: Conquest'' *''Star Wars: Edge of Victory II: Rebirth'' *''Star Wars: Star by Star'' *''Star Wars: Enemy Lines I: Rebel Dream'' *''Star Wars: Enemy Lines II: Rebel Stand'' *''Star Wars: Traitor'' *''Star Wars: Force Heretic I: Remnant'' *''Star Wars: Force Heretic II: Refugee'' *''Star Wars: Force Heretic III: Reunion'' *''Star Wars: The Final Prophecy'' *''Star Wars: The Unifying Force'' Notes and references Category:Females Category:Yuuzhan Vong Category:Yuuzhan Vong shapers Category:Domain Kwaad